King Kobold revived-Warlock-2.5 (16 page)

Rod murmured to Tuan, “What’s got her so upset?”

Page 76

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“She rode out about the countryside, with heralds before her and guardsmen after, to summon all who might have any smallest touch of witch-power within them to come to the Royal Coven at Runnymede.”

Rod shrugged. “So she was recruiting. Why does that have her ready to eat sand and blow glass?”

Catharine looked up. “Who speaks?”

“ ‘Tis the Lord Warlock, my love.” Tuan stepped toward her. “I bethought me he’d find thine news of interest.”

“Indeed he should! Come hither, Lord Warlock! Thou wilt rejoice exceedingly in the news I have to tell, I doubt not!”

Rod could almost feel his skin wither under her sarcasm. He stepped forward with a scowl. “If it has anything to do with witches, I’m all ears. I take it your people didn’t exactly give you a warm reception?”

“I would have thought ‘twas the dead of winter!” Catharine snapped. “My heralds told me that, ere my coach came in view, they felt ’twas only the royal arms on their tabards saved them from stoning.”

“Not exactly encouraging—but not exactly new, either. Still, I had been hop-ing for a change in public attitude toward our espers… uh, witches.”

“So had I also, and so it might have happed—had there not been a voice raised against them.”

“Whose?” Rod’s voice held incipient murder.

“A holy man.” Catharine made the words an obscenity.

Rod’s mouth slowly opened, then snapped shut. He straightened, a touch of disgust in his face. “I should have known.”

“ ‘Tis a renegade friar,” said the Queen, toying with her ring, “or seems to be. I ha’ spoke with Milord Abbot, and he disclaims all knowledge of the recreant.”

“A self-appointed Jonah.” Rod smiled, with acid. “Lives in a cave in the hills on berries and bee-stings, calling himself a holy hermit and a prophet, and sanc-tifying his flesh by never sullying it with the touch of water.”

“He doth preach against me,” said Catharine, her hand tightening on the glass, “and therefore against the King also. For I gather the witches to me here in our castle, and therefore am I unworthy of my royal blood, and mine husband of his crown, though he be anointed sovereign of Gramarye; for mine own slight witchcraft, saith this preacher, is the work of the devil.”

Progress, Rod noted silently. Two years ago, she wouldn’t have admitted to her own telepathic powers, rudimentary though they were.

“And therefore,” said the Queen, “are we agents of Satan, Tuan and I, and unfit to rule. And, certes, all witches in our land must die.” She released her wineglass, striking the table with her fist. Catharine let her head drop into her hands, massaging the temples with her fingertips. “Thus is all our
Page 77

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

work, thine, mine, and Tuan’s, our work of two years and more, brought low in a fortnight; and this not by armies, nor knights, but by one unclean, self-ordained preacher, whose words spread through the land faster than ever a herald might ride. It would seem there is no need of battles to unseat a King; rumor alone is enough.”

“I think,” Rod said slowly, “that this is one little virus that had better be quarantined and eliminated, but fast.”

“Fear not that,” Tuan growled. “Sir Maris hath even now dispatched men throughout the kingdom to listen for word of this monster. When we find him he will be in our dungeons ere the sun sets.”

The words sent a cold chill down Rod’s spine. Sure, when he said it, it sounded okay—but when it came from the King, it had the full iron ring of cen-sorship in its worst form. For the best of reasons, of course—but it was still cen-sorship.

That was about when he began to realize that the real danger here was Gramarye’s reaction to attack, not the raids themselves.

“I’m not so sure it’d do much good to lock up just one man,” he said slowly.

“ ‘Just one’?” Catharine looked up, her eyes wild. “What dost thou say?”

“There could be several.” Rod chose his words carefully. “When you have beastmen attacking from the outside, and you suddenly discover enemies in-side…”

“Aye, I should have thought!” Tuan’s fist clenched. “They would be in league, would they not?”

“We call them ‘fifth columnists,’ where I come from.” Rod stared at the flames. “And now that you mention it, Tuan, the thought occurs to me…”

“The enemy behind the enemy again?” Tuan breathed.

Rod nodded. “Why couldn’t it be the same villain behind both enemies?”

“Of what dost thou speak?” Catharine demanded.

“The beastmen’s king be o’erthrown, sweet chuck.” Tuan stepped up behind her, clasping her shoulder.

“Their king, whom they call the Eagle. He hath been ousted by one whom they name Mughorck the shaman. Mughorck is his name; and by ‘shaman,’ they mean some mixture of priest, physician, and wizard.”

“A priest again!” Catharine glared up at her husband. “Methinks there is too much of the religious in this.”

“They can be very powerful tools,” Rod said slowly.

“They can indeed. Yet, who wields these tools?”

“Nice question. And we may need the answer FESSter then we can get it.”

Behind his ear, Fess’s voice murmured, “Data cannot yet support an accurate inference.”

Page 78

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Well, Rod had to admit the truth of it; there wasn’t any real evidence of collu-sion. On the way back north, he’d pretty much decided that the shaman was probably backed by the futurian totalitarians. Might even be one himself; never ignore the wonders of plastic surgery. What he’d effected was, essentially, a pal-ace revolt with popular support, bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, back on old Terra.

But that was quite another breed from the witch-hunt the Gramaryan preach-ers were mounting, which wasn’t the kind of movement that lent itself well to any really effective central control. A single voice could start it, but it tended to get out of hand very quickly. A central power could direct its broad course but couldn’t determine the details. It was an anarchist’s technique, destroying the bonds of mutual trust that bound people together into a society—and it could lay the groundwork for a warlord. Of course, if a warlord took over a whole nation, the distinction between war-lord and dictator became rather blurry; but the anarchist’s technique was to keep several warlords fighting, and increase their number as much as possible.

“Dost thou truly believe,” Tuan asked, “that both are prongs of one single at-tack?”

Rod shook his head. “Can’t be sure; they could just as easily be two inde-pendent efforts, each trying to take advantage of the other. But for all practical purposes, we’re fighting two separate enemies, and have to split our forces.”

“Then,” said Tuan with decision, “the wisest course is to carry the fight to one enemy, and maintain a guard against the other.” He looked down at Catharine. “We must double the size of our army, at least, my love; for, some must stay here to guard whilst some go overseas to the beastmen’s domain.”

“Thou dost speak of war, mine husband—of war full and bloody.”

Tuan nodded gravely.

Catharine squeezed her eyes shut. “I had feared it would come to this pass. Eh, but I have seen men in battle ere now—and the sight did not please me.”

That, Rod decided, was another huge improvement.

Catharine looked up at Tuan again. “Is there no other way?”

He shook his head heavily. “There cannot be, sweet chuck. Therefore must we gather soldiers—and shipwrights.”

Tuan, Rod guessed, was about to invent a navy.

All Rod had said was, “Take me to the beastmen.” He hadn’t asked for a tour of the dungeons. On second thought, maybe he had.

The sentry who guided him turned him over to a fat warder with a bunch of huge keys at his belt. Then the soldier turned to go. Rod reached out and caught his arm. “Hold on. The beastmen’re supposed to
Page 79

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

be our guests, not our captives. What’re they doing down here?”

The sentry’s face hardened. “I know not, Lord Warlock. ‘Tis as Sir Maris commanded.”

Rod frowned; that didn’t sound like the old knight. “Fetch me Sir Maris forthwith—uh, that is, give him my compliments and tell him I request his pres-ence down here.” Then he turned to follow the warder while the sentry clattered off angrily.

Rod lost track of his whereabouts very quickly; the dungeon was a virtual maze. Probably intentionally…

Finally the warder stopped, jammed a one-pound key into a porthole lock in a door that was scarcely wider than he was. He turned it with both hands, and the key grated through a year or two’s worth of rust. Then the warder kicked the door open, revealing a twenty-foot-square chamber with a twelve-foot ceiling and five glowering beastmen who leaped to their feet, hands reaching for dag-gers that weren’t there any more. Then the flickering light of the warder’s torch showed them who their visitor was, and they relaxed—or at least Yorick did, and the others followed suit. Rod took a breath to start talking, then had to shove his face back into the hall for a second one. Braced against aroma, he stepped through the doorway, look-ing around him, his nose wrinkling. “What in the name of Heaven do you call this?”

“A dungeon,” Yorick said brightly. “I thought that’s where we were.”

“This is an insult!”

Yorick nodded slowly. “Yeah… I’d say that was a good guess…”

Rod spun about, glaring at the warder. “These men are supposed to be our guests!‘’

“Men?” the warder snorted. Then he squelched his feelings under an occupa-tional deadpan. “I but do as I am bid, Lord Warlock.”

“And what’s this?” Rod reached out a foot to nudge a wooden bowl next to Yorick’s foot.

“Gruel,” Yorick answered.

Rod felt his gorge rise. “What’s in it?”

“They didn’t bother telling us,” Yorick said. “But let me guess—an assort-ment of grains from the bottom of the bin. You know—the ones that fell out of the bag and spilled on the floor…”

“I hope you didn’t eat any of it!”

“Not really.” Yorick looked around. “To tell you the truth, it’s not what’s in it that bothers me. It’s how old it is.”

Rod scowled. “I thought that was a trick of the light.”

“No.” Yorick jerked his head up at a window set high in the wall—barred, of course. “We took it over into the sunshine while there still was some. It really is green. Made great bait, though.”

Page 80

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Bait?” Rod looked up with foreboding.

“Yeah. We’ve been holding a rat-killing contest.” Yorick shrugged. “Not much else to do with the time.”

He jerked his head toward a pile of foot-long corpses. “So far, Kroligh’s ahead, seven to four.”

Against his better judgment, Rod was about to ask who had the four when the warder announced,

“Comes Sir Maris.”

The old knight stepped through the door, his head covered with the cowl of his black robe; but the front was open, showing chain mail and a broadsword. “Well met, lord Warlock.”

That’s debatable, Rod thought; but he had always respected and liked the old knight, so he only said,

“As are you, Sir Maris.” He took a deep breath to hold down the anger that threatened to spill over now that it had a logical target. “Why are these men housed within a prison?”

Sir Maris blinked, surprised at the question. “Why—His Majesty bade me house them according to their rank and station!”

Rod let out a huge, gusty breath. “But, Sir Maris—they are not criminals! And they are not animals, either.”

“Assuredly they cannot be much more!”

“They can—vastly more!” Rod’s anger drowned under the need to make the old knight understand.

“It’s the soul that matters, Sir Maris—not intelligence. Though they’ve enough of that, Lord knows. And their souls are every bit as human as ours. Just as immortal too, I expect.” Rod didn’t mention that there were two ways of interpreting that statement. “Their appearance may differ from ours, and they may wear only the skins of beasts; but they are free, valiant warri-ors—yeomen, if you will. And, within their own land and nation, the least of these is the equal of a knight.”

Sir Maris’s eyes widened, appalled; but Yorick had a complacent smile. “A lit-tle thick, maybe, milord—but gratifying. Yes, gratifying. We are refugees, though.”

Rod clasped Sir Maris’s shoulder. “It’ll take a while to understand, I know. For the time being, take my word for it: the King would be appalled if he knew where they were. Take them up to a tower chamber where they may climb up to the roof for air.”

“To walk the battlements, my Lord Warlock?” Sir Maris cried in outrage. “Why, they might signal the enemy!”

Rod closed his eyes. “The enemy has never come closer than the coast, Sir Maris—hundreds of miles away. And these men are not the enemy—they’ve fled from the enemy!” He glanced back at the Neanderthals. “And, come to that—please give them back their knives.”

“Arms!?” the old knight gasped. “Lord Warlock—hast thou thought what they might do with them?”

“Kill rats,” Rod snapped. “Which reminds me—give them rations fit for a fighting man. Bread, Sir Maris—and meat!”

The old knight sighed, capitulating. “It shall be as thou hast…”

Page 81

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Dada!” Rod’s shoulder suddenly sagged under twenty pounds of baby. He reached up in a panic to catch Magnus’s arm, then remembered that, for Magnus at least, falling was scarcely a danger. He let out a sigh of relief, feeling his knees turn to jelly. “Don’t do that to me, Son!”

“Da’y,‘s’ory! Tell’s’ory!”

“A story? Uh—not just now, Son.” Rod lifted the baby from his shoulder and slung him in front of his stomach. “I’m a little busy.”